Oregon State Basketball Hosts Weber State at Gill Coliseum
Tonight at 7 P.M. Pacific, the Beavers play their second game of the season after beating Utah Tech on Monday night, 80-57. Oregon State hosts Weber State, who beat Northwest Indian College 118-35 in their own opener. The game will be played at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis as Wayne Tinkle looks to start 2-0 for the third season in a row.
Gone is Weber State's first-round NBA draft pick Dillon Jones, who led the Wildcats in scoring and rebounding last year with 15.0 points, 9.6 boards, as well as 3.9 assists per game. So far this year, Weber State's top scorer is forward Dyson Koehler, who put up 22 points and eight rebounds in 19 minutes in the win over NWIC, a community college in the Pacific Northwest.
Other top players for Weber State were Viljami Vartiainen, who had 17 points, Blaise Threatt, who had 14 points and seven assists, and Declan Cutler, who had eight points and 10 boards. It's admittedly difficult to gather much information from a win over a junior college, but the Wildcats lost an NBA-caliber player off of a team that finished 20-12 and 11-7 in the Big Sky Conference, meaning they lack last season's firepower and could struggle some this year.
Oregon State's win over Utah Tech featured a monster game from DaMarco Minor, who put up 23 points in the victory. The game has other implications as well, as a win for Tinkle would mark his 300th victory as a Division-I head coach, going back to his days at Montana.
In order to win, they'll need production from other players outside of Minor, some of which they got out of Michael Rataj (15 points, seven rebounds), Parsa Fallah (13 points, seven rebounds, four assists), and Nate Kingz (11 points).
This should be a win for Oregon State, though Weber State will likely make it an interesting game. Hopefully for the Beavers, the home crowd can give them some edge in this matchup and they can start another season with two straight wins.
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Keenan Womack is a sportswriter native to Dallas, Texas, who has spent the last 12 years in Austin, the home of his alma mater, the University of Texas. Keenan has covered sports for SB Nation, Bleacher Report, Rivals/Orangebloods, a host of his own sites and now, Fan Nation. Focusing on basketball, Keenan was on the beat for the Longhorns hoops team for the last two-and-a-half years before moving on to pursue other opportunities. He is married and lives with his wife close to the Moody Center, so they can continue to catch games together.